Does Professional Teeth Whitening Hurt?

When a rigorous oral hygiene routine that includes the best brushing and flossing habits still leaves you with a dingy and discolored smile, you might be feeling discouraged about your stained teeth. 

Not many people have a naturally white smile. Over time, the foods you eat, the beverages you drink, and the aging process start to take their toll and discolor your teeth. 

It’s no surprise that the most popular cosmetic dentistry procedure on the market is teeth whitening. If you’ve decided to dive into the world of teeth whitening, you may have heard that it heightens the sensitivity of your teeth, making it harder to eat or drink anything without pain. 

At Avalon Dental in San Ramon, California, our team led by Dr. Cliff Broschinsky offers an innovative teeth whitening method called KöR teeth whitening. In this month’s blog, we discuss what you can expect from our teeth whitening treatment, including how it affects your teeth.

How KöR teeth whitening works

All teeth whitening products — whether they’re professional-grade or over-the-counter — contain some sort of bleaching agent to effectively remove stains from your teeth. 

One of the most commonly used bleaching agents is hydrogen peroxide. The amount of hydrogen peroxide in a whitening solution has to be high enough to be effective but not so high that it damages your teeth. 

Most of the time, professional teeth whitening products have a strong-but-not-too-strong amount of hydrogen peroxide in their whitening solutions or gels. But unfortunately, even with a proper hydrogen peroxide balance, whitening products applied to your teeth often don't stay potent long enough to whiten your teeth effectively. 

This is what KöR teeth whitening seeks to correct in a few different ways. 

The KöR hydrogen peroxide whitening agent must stay refrigerated to ensure that the solution stays potent for longer, giving it ample time to break down stain molecules. The high-potency gel has whitening power for up to six hours while other products typically only have 25 minutes.

In addition, KöR provides custom-made teeth whitening trays that keep out saliva, which can reverse any of the progress made on stain removal. 

What to expect from KöR teeth whitening

When you choose to undergo KöR teeth whitening with our Avalon Dental team, we start by creating trays that are made from molds of your teeth. This ensures the trays fit snugly, which keeps the whitening gel in and saliva out. 

Once we’ve made your trays, we send you home with the trays and whitening gel so you can do the treatment on your own. There are a few different ways to use the treatment at home. The more effective method is wearing the trays overnight for two weeks, but you can wear them for shorter periods during the day if you can’t tolerate them overnight. 

For severe staining that requires next-level treatment, you can combine the at-home treatments with a treatment session in our office.  

KöR has taken extra care to develop a whitening product formula that keeps your teeth’s inner structures intact, which should mitigate any risk of tooth sensitivity after you finish treatment. You can rest assured that your new smile will not only be beautiful but healthy and pain-free as well. 

Is KöR teeth whitening right for you?

If you’re looking for a way to brighten your smile, look no further than our whitening treatment at Avalon Dental. To learn if KöR teeth whitening or any of our other cosmetic dentistry procedures could be right for you, schedule a consultation by calling our office or using our online booking feature today.